August 30, 2013

Originally introduced in Jimmy Olsen #142, the miniature world of Transilvane was created as an experiment in learning how to terraform other planets, but for reasons known only to Kirby, the scientist in charge of the project decided instead to seed Transilvane with tiny artificial people and use orbital projectors to constantly play horror movies in the sky.

To continue:

So naturally, this led to the Transilvanian lifeforms evolving into Draculas, Frankensteins and Wolfmen who eventually started blasting off to the larger earth around them in coffin-shaped spaceships, which in turn caused the scientist to try to wipe everything out with a handy dose of Genocide Spray. [emphases in original]

Alas, the Gothic world gives way to a non-Gothic world, just like in the second Matrix movie.

Fortunately, Superman and Jimmy Olsen stopped all this, and switched out the horror movies for westerns, and now THERE IS AN ENTIRE MINIATURE PLANET OF TINY COWBOY DRACULAS THAT IS STRAIGHT UP A THING THAT EXISTS IN SUPERMAN’S HOMETOWN, AND NO ONE EVER TALKS ABOUT THIS. [emphases in original]

August 28, 2013

Two Seattle scientists realized a mad science dream when one successfully used his brain to control the other's mind and body.

Rajesh Rao, a UW computer science and engineering professor, used his thoughts to control the actions of Andrea Stucco, a research assistant professor in the school's psychology department.

We could ask "how doe this perfectly embody faculty politics?" Or else wonder, how did it work?

Rao wore an EEG cap that read his brain's electrical activity, while Stucco had a transcranial magnetic stimulation coil, which can stimulate brain activity, placed over his left motor cortex, the region of the brain that controls hand movement. A code translated brain signals from the EEG into commands for the brain.

And then it looked like so:

Rao imagined moving his right hand (without actually moving it) to click the "fire" button that would shoot a cannon in a video game. Across campus, Stucco, who wasn't looking at the computer screen in his lab where the video game was unfolding, involuntarily moved his right hand and pushed the space bar on his keyboard to fire the cannon, as if experiencing a nervous tic.

Brown was best known for his appearances on the Christian Television Network kid's show, Joy Junction, where he and his equally creepy puppet, Marty, would warn children of the evils lurking in the world...

Brown ran a kiddie party business called Puppets Plus.

Puppets Plus indeed.

To sum up, a religious puppeteer who specialized in working with children fantasized about kidnapping, torturing, raping, murdering, then eating said children. It's a nice package of nightmare fuel, ready to stalk your sleep. Thank you, Florida.